WASHINGTON – U.S. senior economic adviser Larry Kudlow is calling his country’s trade dispute with Canada little more than a “family quarrel,” and says President Donald Trump is trying to repair a damaged world trade system. Some of what he said Wednesday:

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“Trump’s trying to fix this broken system. It was a good system … and it lasted for a bunch of decades, but that system has been broken in the last 20 years, plus. The World Trade Organization, for example, has become completely ineffectual. And even when it makes a decision, even in the rare moments when it makes decisions, important countries don’t even abide by them.”

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“I think free world trade is a very good thing, indeed, but it is broken and President Trump is trying to fix it.”

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“I think he’s the strongest trade reformer in many decades.”

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“Each country has a responsibility to re-engage the world trading system. We are making requests … the president would like other countries to deal with our requests. So far, they have not in any satisfactory way.”

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“I think what we’re engaged with here is trade disputes that need to be solved.”

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“The president has said this many times: we are bound by the national interest here, more than anything else. We’re always interested in the World Trade Organization … but international multilateral organizations are not going to determine American policy.”

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“(Trump) regards himself as a free trader, but until we can deal with these unfair practices and so forth, we will not have fair trade. Until we can have reciprocal relationships, we will not have free trade, we will not have fair trade. I think his cause is just and I think the rest of the world agrees with him.”

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“He’s proven himself to be a leader on the world stage and he’s achieved great successes, I might add, in foreign policy.”

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“My view, we can get through this. We have in the past. There’s always tensions about something.”

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